noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of mending
Middle English word dating back to 1250–1300; see origin at mend, -ing 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Parker has been mending rifts professionally for 25 years, but she insists that her skill set shouldn’t be special.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2026
A pile of mending projects in my sewing room filled a shelf.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 8, 2026
"You don't get many people mending raw cashmere," said Wade, whose role is to meticulously inspect and darn any defects in the fabric by hand, before it is washed, cut and shipped around the world.
From Barron's ● Feb. 20, 2026
Inviting us to sit down with a show about mental health professionals mending their spirits is group therapy on a massive scale in a time of diagnosable disorder.
From Salon ● Feb. 7, 2026
The fairies busily healed one another, mending wings and closing wounds.
From "Fablehaven" by Brandon Mull
The approach was like a turnpike road full of great ruts, clumsy mendings; bordered by trampled edges and incursions upon the grass at pleasure.
From The Hand of Ethelberta by Thomas Hardy
The seams were white, the edges curled, the buttonholes torn in spite of many mendings; the whole presenting to the most unobservant eyes the heart-breaking stigmas of honest penury.
From The Brotherhood of Consolation by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
Rhyme, now: he had called it often enough a jingle of endings; it were more true to say that it was a jingle of mendings, for it certainly soothed him.
From Little Novels of Italy by Maurice Henry Hewlett
All my makings and mendings and turnings are done at home by a clever little workwoman, under my own superintendance, and I am most careful and economical.
From Notable Women Authors of the Day Biographical Sketches by Helen C. Black
His little mendings and fallings back ceased to be the chief things in the house.
From Sir Tom by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
